


None Other Should Be Master of Me

by LazyGC



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series, 悪魔城ドラキュラX 追憶の夜想曲 | Castlevania: Nocturne of Recollection - Fandom
Genre: Cesar the Undead Doggo, Expansion on Lyudmil's character and his family, F/M, Gen, Gratuitous quote-mining of Bram Stoker, Love Across An Ocean of Time, M/M, Slow Burn, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-08 19:53:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16435781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyGC/pseuds/LazyGC
Summary: "No man knows 'til he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be."There may be no hope for us, but let me tell you this.  You have followed me into my darkest hours and carried me through.  Wherever you sail through the ocean of time, I will follow.  I will never be parted from you again.Never.





	1. Despair Has Its Own Calms

His father had kept animals, presumably to sustain his forces, but Alucard could not care for them all, and so his first act after pulling himself out of his father's chair was to drive most of the livestock through his father's Carpathian mirror to Gresit, having seen the devastation there and knowing that the animals would be a great boon to the place. He kept a mare and a small number of chickens, and repaired the automated devices that kept the creatures' quarters clean and stocked, then opened the doors to the stables and warded the surrounding land so that they could roam a short distance. There were... other creatures in the castle, but he would deal with them later.

  
Alucard focused upon preservation of the most important and easily damaged artifacts first; he relocated paintings and entire shelves, salvaged glassware, and boarded up holes in walls of the castle with remnants of vault staircases until they could be properly fixed. Sypha had drained the water in the surrounding area before leaving, minimizing further damage to texts and woodwork, but the weather was not to be relied upon and Alucard scrambled to relocate the texts in the Belmont vault before the place inevitably became a dank pit of rotting pulp. The archive was well organized and so he transferred it by section into the dungeons of the castle temporarily. His magic made the work quick, but it still took almost a month before he had moved everything that could be even remotely salvage from the vault alone.

  
He then made use of his father's- his- mirror, and set the portal to open underneath a fragile shelf of earth. Rock and dirt spilled into the now empty void where the legacy of the Belmonts had slept, and Alucard used magic to compress it. He had to pace himself as he could not keep the mirror open and spell the repeated the process until at last, nothing but a strange discolored place in the ground remained.

  
He wondered how pissed off Trevor would be, but really, it was Sypha's fault for making the area so unstable.  
Finding a proper place for everything would take a great deal more time, and Alucard was not in a particular rush. He spent some time re-familiarizing himself with the castle, which had, bizarrely, changed much of its layout in the past year. Though his father would refer to the castle as a machine, the thing was just as much magic as it was metal and stone, and it seemed that he had not been completely forthcoming with his family about the depth to which power ran through the place. Sometimes, at night, Alucard felt as though there was something pulsing all around him, as though he was drifting inside the body of a beast. At first, he thought that it might be his mind playing with him, and that it was his own heart he was hearing, deafening in the solitude. He quickly realized that no, there was something more. A presence. The beat of something laid in the walls and floors that had once been drowned out by the voices of his parents... or perhaps it was the specter of his father, and he was going mad.

  
It was during this exploration of the castle that he discovered was the dog that looked like it had been crunched into an unnatural shape with one leg stripped of flesh, wandering aimlessly through the halls. He was tempted to put the wretched thing out of its misery, but then it woofed huffily and bounded at him, its pathetic tail wobbling in delight.

  
"Well," Alucard said as he knelt, and picked the dead dog up. "You are as in place as anything else here, I suppose."

 

* * *

  
The dog was the first of several eccentric constructs he discovered He became acutely aware that there were little dead things roaming all over the place, cats, birds, rats, and more... exotic creatures. Most seemed content to leave him be, but he'd had to put down a massive and extremely aggressive blue snake, which was a shame. It had been beautiful, bright scales broken by flashes of rib.

  
The dog trailed him as he went about planning the proper incorporation of the Belmont archive into the castle. His father's own archives always had space, but he was more inclined to keep the materials segregated, and ultimately decided that he would place the books alongside the castle's texts, but re-purpose the dungeons to hold the more... unsettling items the hunters had kept, along with the artwork, of which there had been a surprisingly vast collection. He locked and ensorcelled the cells and the library whenever he left; it was a given that people would eventually discover and try to raid the castle, and while he did not care for what else was done, he would not have the castle be a second Alexandria.

  
Alucard peeked in on his poultry, chased away an undead fox with a curse and then warded the area so that the beast would not return, gave the horse a more careful look over- she was well- and then gathered eggs that he could not sense emerging form from. There were blood stores in the castle, but he did not want to get used to subsisting solely upon them; he wouldn't replenish them and it was not something that he wished to be overly reliant upon.

  
His experience with chemistry gave him a basic understanding of cooking, so though he had no experience, he would not sicken himself or starve. He offered a bit of egg to the dog, but the zombie refused it, which did not surprise him. It pulled what sustained it from ether, he supposed.

  
The dhampir was undoing the protective seal he had placed upon the library doors when he heard the intrusion. The beat of a human heart in the halls, coming up the stairs behind him.


	2. A Stranger in a Strange Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you believe in destiny? That even the powers of time can be altered for a single purpose?"  
> .  
> Alucard finds truths unlooked for far too late for them to make any difference, and so they are truths unwanted.

Alucard did not hesitate, but rather slid into the shadow of the nearby lift, and shifted. His body faded, and became mist and he waited to observe the person coming up the stairs. If it was one of his father's allies, which was likely given that the person was alone, this would be a simple killing. If it was some fool come to pinch valuables... the human wound about the stairs and came into view.

  
A tired-looking half-starved peasant. He could not be more than five and twenty years and yet his hair was greying, and his expression grim, but not dazed like the humans Alucard had seen in Gresit, faces of people half-trapped in horror.  More grounded.  The man eyed the door to the library curiously, which gleamed with magic. He was unarmed, completely devoid of any possessions at all save for the clothes on his back and...

  
Alucard lost control of his form in his surprise, then drew his blade and set it at the human's throat. The man stopped, eyes wide, mouth falling open. The human stumbled as he turned, back hitting the door; Alucard could smell his fear.

  
"What..." the dhampir hissed, eyes flashing red, "are you doing with that 'round your neck?!" The man did not respond, eyes fixed on Alucard's sword. "Answer!"

  
"I... you... I was..." he stammered. "I came to... I wanted to..."

  
Alucard became intensely aware of the blood hammering through the man's veins, and realized his teeth were bared. He hissed out a breath and lowered his weapon.

  
"I-I'm sorry; I know how this must look, but I've been trying to find this castle for over a year now, or at least I think it is this castle, but there was no one in the great hall so I..." the man babbled.

  
"I asked you a question," Alucard said, eyes still narrowed, his hand steady.

  
"Yes, the locket, um... yes..." the human's eyes were still on the sword, his left hand reaching up to the chain around his neck. "Right... I... I have been- had been- trying to return this to the lord of this castle for over a year now, but every time I got remotely close to it, it would vanish. I was going to ask him if... but then I heard that he had been killed. I thought to give up then, but..." The man looked up, and his eyes widened again, but he no longer looked frightened. "I heard rumors that the lord's son wasn't killed and I thought better of it."

  
Alucard stared at him.

  
"You were... following Dracula's castle about during the war because you wanted to return that and ask him something."

  
"Yes. Pardon my impudence, but are you not Lord Adrian? You look..." and suddenly the man's eyes seemed wet. "You ah, you look like Lady Lisa."

  
Alucard sheathed the sword and lifted his hand, palm outwards. "The locket. Give it to me. And your name." The man nodded and lifted both his hands, one to cover his eyes while the other lifted the chain over his head and dropped it gently into the dhampir's grasp.

  
"It... yes, my apologies. My name is Lyudmil, Lord Adrian."

  
"Don't call me that."

  
"Sorry?"

  
"'Alucard' will do," he said, "and I apologize for threatening you. I thought that..."

  
Lyudmil gestured rapidly between them. "Oh, no, Lord Adr-Alucard, I should have thought how it would look if I was seen... no, the fault was mine."

  
The dhampir eyed Lyudmil for a moment. He'd calmed remarkably quickly, still tired, hungry, and unhappy, but not afraid, which was good because Alucard had never possessed good bedside manners despite his mother's influence, and then examined the necklace he'd been delivered. It was very well-preserved, no doubt due to magic. He considered clicking it open, but... no. No. He slid it into his coat.

  
"You said that you wished to speak to... Dracula. He is dead," Alucard said, fingers clenched around the locket. "I cannot guarantee that I can give you the answer you were looking for, but I would like to know what you wanted to say to him." He strolled up to the door and broke the seal upon it. "In here, come." Alucard then hooked the door to the wall, and stalked off into the library, stopping at the first table and set of chairs he found. He flicked his hand, and two of them pulled out from under the table, then sat and indicated for the human to do the same. "What did you wish to ask?"

  
Lyudmil nodded, more to himself than to Alucard. "Well, it... you are not going to approve."

  
"Yes, I expect so," Alucard said.

  
"I wanted to... at first, I wanted to offer myself in service to his cause," Lyudmil admitted, and looked a bit nervous when he saw Alucard's lips tighten. "I... I am no fighter or anything of the sort, but I thought that perhaps I could serve in other ways, even if it just meant offering my blood. However, as the year passed and the slaughter started, I... I wanted to tell him about Lady Lisa. I realized that he must not have known the full extent of what happened when... when she died."

  
"I cannot have this conversation right now," Alucard replied, his hands shaking under the table. "I know what happened. I was there."

  
"Not for the whole of it, Lord Alucard," Lyudmil said.

  
"It would not have happened if I had been." She had screamed her last words to him, pleas for mercy, begging him to not come any closer because he had arrived too late and they both knew it but he hadn't wanted to believe it. The mob had not seen him, but she had. "I don't... is this all you wanted?" he bit out.

  
The human was frowning at him. "My lord, I will stop speaking of that time, but there are other things I should say. Lady Lisa, she saved my parents from death, some years ago. I always admired her... she was... I couldn't help her before. My mother and father couldn't help her. They were... but never mind. I wanted to do something for her, for all the help she gave to my family over the years. Are... are you the only person here, Lord Alucard?"

  
"Yes."

  
"That is..." Lyudmil stopped, then steeled himself and spoke very firmly, "Lord Alucard, if you would permit it, I would like to offer my services to you. It was my original intent when I first set out, to ask Lord Dracula if he would permit me to do so. You are Lady Lisa's son. I would consider it a great honour if you let me do such a thing, if for no other reason than because of how miserably I failed her."

  
Alucard thought for a moment, then said, "Is there anyone else with you, Lyudmil? You mentioned your-" but Lyudmil was shaking his head.

  
"My parents died that night. We had... the Bishop had them hanged, and I barely escaped with my own life." The human looked increasingly ashamed and angry, and did not meet Alucard's eyes.

  
"Why were your parents executed?" Alucard asked, though he was starting to understand, and the horror of it turned his stomach. He wasn't prepared to hear this, but he had to be sure.

  
"We saw them take her from Lupu and followed them. We tried to break her out of Targoviste, but we were... not enough, and my parents were caught." Lyudmil explained, gripping his wrist.

  
They had tried to save her.

  
_There are no innocents!_

  
Humans... had tried to save her.

  
_**Any one of them** could have stood up and said, " **No** , we won't behave like animals anymore"!_

 

"Excuse me for a while, if you please," Alucard murmured, and he fled the library, rushed to the nearest window, and vomited.

 

_He hadn't known.  He hadn't known.  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alucard is a powerful magic user something we didn't see much of in the show. If he seems to do things beyond his means to show-only watchers, that is why.


	3. She Dreamed Her Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Love and patience are all that make for happiness in this world; or in the world of the past or of the future; of the living or the dead. She dreamed her dream; and that is all that any of us can ask. "

_Adela had been young when she'd married Ludvik, to the point where she could scarcely be considered a woman. Fortunately, the pair had been fond of one another for years and the marriage, though premature, would have been a happy one. Her husband's mild manner complemented her vivacity, and the two of them were able to make do for themselves well enough._

_It was not long before all contentment in their life had leeched away._

_Lyudmil was eight years old when he became aware that something was very wrong with his mother. A rule like "never leave anything on the floor, or your mother could trip and be hurt" seemed normal enough, and perhaps that was why he hadn't questioned it when he was told that he couldn't run too far ahead or his mother would not be able to follow, or that he could only hug his mother's arm, not her waist. His mother, pale and fragile, who could be so funny and sweet for brief moments only to sink back into her typical grim disposition, snapped at him without cause and then sent him out of the house with something that wasn't quite anger, but felt like it, and so he had gone to find Ludvik._

_"She wasn't always like this," his father said, patting Lyudmil's shoulder as the boy sniffed. "Don't you tell anyone this, but your mama... she's got a hurt inside her. Had it longer than we've had you. Your mama carries that everyday, so we need to carry as much as we can to make it easier." Ludvik bit his lip, then grasped his son by the shoulders. "You mustn't tell anyone, you understand? They'll take her away. They'll kill her. You can't tell anyone, Lyudmil."_

_Lyudmil promised not to speak of it. For the next three days, Adela of Lupu did not get out of bed, and Lyudmil spent those days in the house with her, and watched helplessly as his mother wept and moaned and prayed for mercy that did not come._

 

* * *

  
At length, Lord Adrian returned. Over the course of their previous exchange he had gone from naturally fair to sheet-white, but what small amount of color he did have had returned to him. In one hand he held a small jug and a cup was looped through one of his fingers. In the other was a quirky ceramic piece; two bowls linked by a loop.

"Your earlier apologies were not necessary," the man said, setting the things down on the table. "By the look of you I doubt that you have had proper food in some time. I don't have much to offer; I wouldn't dare give you any meat that was here prior to... my return, and I sent most of the livestock elsewhere. That said, you may help yourself to whatever I possess. I assume that there are things you wish to know of me, and I have more questions for you, but that can wait. This," he tapped the jug, "is water." Lyudmil nodded gratefully, and Lord Adrian sat back and closed his eyes, waiting.

Lyudmil thanked him and began to eat, his gaze flicking between the food and his host.

_God, but he looks just like her._  
_I should not have told him what I did. He did not need to know straight away. Tactless. Stupid._  
_It's like staring at a ghost, only his eyes are different._

"Oh, I should warn you about the animals," the lord sighed.

Lyudmil set down his water, and cleared his throat. "Pardon?"

Lord Adrian huffed. "Dracula apparently had someone with too much time on their hands amid his forces. No mere necromancer, but a forgemaster, I think, judging by the retention of personalities and instincts. Whoever they were, they left behind what can only be described as pets. I've seen several of them wandering about. They seem harmless enough, but you ought to know that I have not had time to fully explore the castle; it would be unwise to wander about before I have in the event that there's another giant snake about."

Lyudmil tapped his right fingers nervously against the back of his left hand. "Are there any demons about?"

"No," Lord Adrian said. "I do not abide demons, and I expect the feeling is mutual. There may be some minor creatures of the night skulking about, if that is what you meant; they are not all inherently malicious, however, and I think that any that were either would have attacked or fled by now."

"If you don't mind my asking, you said that you are the only person here, and there may or may not be monsters about. Why have you stayed?"

Lisa's son waved around the room. "Abandoning centuries of accumulated knowledge to a future of rot, fire, and pillaging is not something I am willing to do. Beyond that... the grounds the castle sits upon have been entrusted to me." He sighed. "I suppose I ought to tell you about the past year and head off your questions."

"If you don't mind."

"It was not long after I returned to the castle that my father appeared. I do not know how he found out so quickly what had happened, for he had been abroad, but..."

 

* * *

  
"... and off went Belmont and Belnades to Braila," Lord Alucard finished. "A wise decision on their part. From what little I saw of Braila in the mirror, the place was not obliterated, but it was heavily damaged and is vulnerable to whatever foulness remains on the prowl. They will need aid."

"What happened to the human you saw in the castle?"

"He disappeared- through the mirror, perhaps? That was likely the devil forgemaster." the lord frowned. "I suppose it is too much to hope that he will not cause further damage, wherever he is."

Lyudmil shrugged, his lip curling slightly. "I don't see how it matters. Humans are always killing humans."

"You despise them, don't you?" he said quietly.

"I... I wouldn't care if they were scoured from the earth, Lord Ad-Alucard," Lyudmil admitted.

The lord rose, and gestured for Lyudmil to do the same. "You are welcome to stay as long as you wish, though I shall have to ensure that the castle is safe for you and make arrangements for provisions to be sent here regularly. I don't suppose you can read?"

"I cannot."

"Well, you can keep Treffy company until you are capable of assisting with archiving, I suppose."

"Treffy?"

"Hmm? Oh, that. The squashed dog running about. Treffy."

Lord Adrian made for the exit of the library, and Lyudmil followed him out, laughing. "After the Belmont?"

"The resemblance is uncanny, I assure you." They walked down several staircases, back towards the entrance, but then detoured into a small room. The lord stopped, and a cold feeling crept over Lyudmil.

"... Lyudmil..."

"My Lord?"

"You said that you felt you failed my mother," Alucard murmured, slipping his hand into his coat and drawing out the locket that Lyudmil had returned to him. "but there is only one way that could be true. My mother believed in humans. Believed they have the potential to be more than they are. She used to say that my father's repository of knowledge could lift humans to greater heights, and that it would be wrong not to use it to that end."

He strode up to the fireplace, where a portrait of Lisa of Lupu hung, and placed the locket underneath.

"If you wish to honor my mother, you need not aspire to such a lofty goal, nor all but prostrate yourself before me." He crossed his arms, back to Lyudmil. When he turned, Lyudmil gasped, for his eyes were no longer gold.

They were his mother's blue.

_"Do not hate humans. If you cannot live with them, then at least do them no harm. For theirs is already a hard lot."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to point out a couple of things.
> 
> Yes, I renamed Cesar. He doesn't have a collar, and once I got the idea in my head, it wouldn't leave.
> 
> Alucard put the portrait of Lisa back on the wall at some point; I just didn't think it needed mentioning in the fic.
> 
> Alucard having blue eyes in the final scene is a reference to *ahemmyinterpretationof* his Sorrow design, in which he has his mother's blue eyes and his father's dark hair, a reversal. One could argue that his eyes are gray or brown in the Sorrow design, but I like my headcanon better, so... ugh, just tell me what you think about that because I'm really iffy on it. I think it may be too obtuse. 
> 
> I'm terrible at dialogue, and everyone always ends up sounding kind of same-ish in my writing. Sorry about that.
> 
> Some portions of this are actually intentionally stilted for a couple of reasons. I am trying to evoke mindset more than anything else in this chapter. 
> 
> This chapter had to be torn out of me. I'm still not quite happy with it, so if you have read it, please do let me know what you think, because it was very hard to write.


	4. We Fall In Good Cause

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist."

_Lyudmil had seemingly an endless well of energy and a great willingness to please, and so when he wasn't aiding his mother, he was out with his father. He was too young to contribute much to his father's labor, but Ludvik would let him do lighter things: fetching tools, a little weeding or sowing, and basic care for their animals. He was was shooing off birds from the fields when he tripped, and landed hard on his left arm. There was a sickening snap, and his vision blurred with pain as he let out a keening wail. He was only vaguely aware of men shouting around him before he was moved, and his cry turned to a shriek. His father, he realized, and he turned his head into Ludvik's chest to muffle himself._

_"Fuck. Lyudmil, calm down. Emil, where the hell are we going?! You said-"_

_"The one what fixed my wife's leg lives this way. Just mind that you don't drop him."_

_Lyudmil kept his eyes squeezed shut, the pain making him dizzy. It throbbed with each careful step his father took. What he would later learn only took a few minutes felt like hours in his misery, and he held himself as still as he could, but his crying made his breath hitch, which jostled his arm, which made him scream._

_A door slammed, and he was vaguely aware of some rapid exchange between Mr. Emil and a woman. Then they were inside a house, taken into a second room, and his father was setting him onto a table. Lyudmil whimpered and shook his head, clutching at his father's clothes._

_"None of that, fiul meu, let go now. I'm not going anywhere. Let go."_

_"You can still hold onto his hand, but I do need his left side clear so I can look," the woman's voice said._

_Ludvik grabbed his son's fingers and gently peeled them away as he eased the boy back. "Hush, hush... you're a strong one, Lyudmil. You can carry it, I know you can."_

_"I'm hesitant to work with his arm when he's this distressed. He could injure himself further. With your permission-"_

_Lyudmil did not remember what was said next._

_When he came to, he was in his bed at home, and his mother was stroking his brow. There was not much pain, but then nausea hit him hard, and he pushed up, head spinning. Someone shoved a bucket in his face. He was sick until there was nothing to heave up, tears streaming down his face from the strain of it._

_"Poor thing," said the person holding the bucket, who was neither his mother nor his father. "It's what I gave him earlier.  I am sorry about that."_

_"Don't be sorry," Adela replied. "Lyudmil's a strong boy."_

_The woman waited a moment to make sure Lyudmil was finished before lowering the bucket, and smiled faintly at him. "I believe it. I'm glad you're finally awake, Lyudmil. I don't believe we've met before. I'm Lisa."_

_"Hello, Lady Lisa," he croaked._

_"I'll get you some water," she said, standing up and vanishing from the house._

_His mother's arms slid around his back and under his legs, and she lifted him up into her lap with some effort, and held him close._

_"Mama, you shouldn't, it hurts you," he whispered, even as he fought the urge to lean in._

_"I don't care. I don't care. I was so scared. They said you were hurt but not how. My baby. My doll. Not you. I can't... I can't..." she burst into tears. "Lyudmil, Lyudmil, I'd rather die. I'd rather die. I don't want you to be hurt, not ever."_

_Lyudmil felt his strained eyes well up. "I don't want you to hurt either, mama. I'm sad that you're hurt, too."_

_Neither of them were aware that Lisa had returned, politely waiting at the door, contemplative._

 

* * *

 

 

Alucard led his guest to the chambers he himself had been occupying since his return to the castle, having been reluctant to return to his own rooms. He taught Lyudmil how to work the bath, directed him to some basic clean clothes that had been abandoned by the room's previous occupant, and then advised him to sleep after washing despite it only being early evening.

"It would be best for you to remain here until I have ensured that the castle is truly secure for you to wander about in. Lock the door behind me until I return."

"Thank you, my lord." Lyudmil would not meet his eyes. It seemed that he had taken Alucard's earlier words as a condemnation of his general character rather than what it was meant to be. Unacceptable.

"I did not say what I did to shame you, Lyudmil. You yourself are human. My mother would not wish you to loathe your own blood, and neither do I."

The mortal jerked a bit, startled. "Ah, that is... I suppose you are right." He looked less chagrined now, and so Alucard nodded and left Lyudmil to his own devices, working his way deeper into the castle until he came to his old quarters. His father had apparently blocked up this entire section of the castle; the doors had vanished as if they had never been there. Strangely, though his nursery was still only accessable through the hole in the wall his father had smashed him through (and Alucard had lazily boarded up), the doors to other rooms had reappeared.

Alucard had long suspected that his father had lied to his wife and son about the nature of the castle. No mere machine was this.

He ignored all else and knelt at his bedside, breathing out a sigh of relief when his hands met resistance. A little locked teak box, its contents untouched. He had feared that his father might have destroyed it, but it seemed not. He pulled off one of his gloves, and sliced his middle finger with his thumb, letting his blood well and then drop onto the box's latch, which clicked.

To the untrained eye, they were nothing more than particularly fancy triumph cards, each made with two types of wood set back to back and bound together with rune-laden metals. The initial fight against his father had been abrupt, spontaneous, and his horrific injuries had prevented him from retrieving the cards before his desperate flight. He drew first the card depicting a wolf crouched behind a greatsword underneath a half moon, and slipped his wounded finger across it.

His blood sank into the card, and then there was a voice behind him.

"A year you've been gone, and still you are too weak, frate. I can feel it."

"As always, I am sorry to be such a disappointment," Alucard replied tartly. He'd almost forgotten this one's impertinence. "Regardless, I have a task for you. There is a human in the castle, a guest. His should be the only locked chamber two floors down. You are to lie by the door while I am occupied elsewhere. If any threat that seeks to do harm to him or myself, dispatch it."

His brother was not pleased. "I was made to guard you, not some worthless dreck," the sword grumbled even as it floated away and out the room.

Well, that was one done. He pulled another card. His ennui had up 'til now been a convenient excuse for avoiding doing anything more than the barest minimum to secure the Belmont legacy and the castle, but if he was going to have a human about then he needed to be more alert to the coming and going of creatures within it. He bled, and called.

This one neither spoke nor understood speech, and so Alucard called upon their shared blood and made his thoughts known, _'I am sorry for leaving you alone for so long, Kokoro. I have a task for you, and after it is done, you may stay with me for a time.'_ The bat in his hands chirped and grasped at the sleeves of his coat. _'I want you to go to your kin and ask them to keep watch over the rooms and halls, and the land in about a five mile radius. Do you understand?'_

She did, so he stood and opened the window on the northern wall, and gently tossed her into the evening sky. She oriented herself with a few spins and chirps, then flapped upwards toward the rooftops of the high towers.

Alucard did not usually pull more than one card at a time; the initial summoning drained power from his blood, and so it was impractical. He slipped the cards into his coat and placed the box back under his bed, then made his way back through passages and up and down stairs until he was in the library once more.

Three sets of halls and stairs, and he was near the center of the archive. Sandwiched between two shelves was an innocuous door, which he opened with a creak.

Ah. He really should have checked this room immediately after his father's defeat.

"Oh! It's you, Master Adrian! What would you like this time? Astronomy? Entomology? Erotica?"

"No, Old One," Alucard said. "It occurred to me that you might be rotting in here and that I ought to see if I needed to bury your bones."

The librarian cackled. "Such little respect you have for me. My bones are right where they belong, living or not. Tell me, how is the Master?"

"Ah." Alucard hesitated, then said, "You've not been paying much attention of late, have you?"

"No one's come to visit me in quite some time, I suppose, but I am fine with that; I've caught up on my shelving. Everyone in this castle is terrible at putting things back where they belong! I'm old; I shouldn't have to clean up after children!"

"My father is dead, Old One," Alucard informed him, ignoring his gripes.

"Eh? Oh, no, that's nonsense," the librarian snorted. "The castle is here. I am here. The master is not dead."

A chill crept up the dhampir's spine. "What do you mean? Why would my father's death cause the castle to not be here?"

The Old One leaned forward a little, stroking the spine of the tome in his lap. "Come now. You're your father's son. Even if the Master has never seen fit to inform you, I cannot believe that you would not at least sense it on some level. Chaos pulses through your veins as it pulses through the Master. As it pulses through the castle. It beats to the drum of its Lord's will. If the Master were ever to fade, so too would fade the pulse of Chaos. Unless," he added thoughtfully, "the Master has been supplanted. Hmm. Who sits upon the throne, Young Master?"

"I... no one," Alucard said, shaking his head.

"You do not sound sure of that," he observed. "Were I you, I would go to the throne. Hmm, or maybe I should go to it. Lord of my own castle, that does sound fun. Luxury does befit me."

"I think you should stay here," Alucard said. "Actually, I have a gift for you... a great many gifts, in fact."

"Oh?" said the Old One, his eyes flashing. "Oh, what is it? Rubies? Opals? You always bring me the most thoughtful things, Young Master."

Alucard smiled at him. "Another library."

"Another-?! Goodness, Master Adrian, when did you come to possess such a thing? A second library? Oh, dear, how large is it? Is it organized? Please tell me it is organized, Young Master!" Horror filled the old man's face.

"About that. Yes, it is organized... sort of. I was forced to relocate them as the castle's arrival in this area compromised the integrity of their original home. I planned on bringing them up and recreating their arrangement in one of the lesser-used rooms, and your oversight would be appreciated." The dhampire paused, then asked, "Owing to the great body of work that it comprises, I am wondering if it might be prudent to find you assistance in maintaining the archive. What is your opinion on that?"

"Well, if you can find people who would be up to my standard, being unobtrusive, intelligent, polylingual, eager to learn and please, slow to tire, well-organized, and-"

"I understand," Alucard cut him off. "Very well. I will find someone. Several someones, maybe. It would be better to have a group of people maintaining the archive with your supervision. You really should not be the only person here."

The Old One beamed at him. "Oh, and could you make sure that at least one of them is pretty? High art is all well and good to look at but it does get so dull after a while."

"No."

"But, Young Mast-"

"No. Just for that, I will make sure to find the ugliest people I can manage."

"How cruel, Master Adrian. Where did my devoted and doting dhampir go? Where is your compassion, your charity? I am hurt, Young Master, truly I am." The librarian harrumphed, then cracked his book back open and refused to look up from it.

Alucard's smile widened, and he pulled a bauble out of his coat. It was a pretty thing, a jade pin fashioned in the shape of a peacock. Alucard had taken it from the belongings of one of his father's guests. "Don't be like that. Here, you know I never come to you empty-handed." He reached across the desk, only for the librarian to snatch it out of his hand greedily.

"Eh-heh! Thank you!"

 

* * *

  
He would start transferring the shelves up soon, then. He'd move the Carpathian Mirror to the library as well; there was little point in keeping it in a room he detested entering.

There were too many rooms in the castle he detested entering.

The throne room was one of them.

He had not been to it in years, long before his mother's death. That place had always made him feel ill at ease. There was something not right about it. It seemed an impossible piece of architecture, a room connected to the castle only by a flight of stairs. As a child, he'd been outright terrified of the place, convinced that one good shake under the castle would send the whole thing crashing to the earth, and the feeling had never quite left him even after he had learned to shift forms reliably. Not even wings could banish his childish fear of falling, it seemed.

Perhaps what the Old One said was true, but Alucard would not go to the throne room tonight. Instead, he went back to his father's study, and began to gather up the mirror; he would use it to move the books to their final home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alucard's familiar cards. Here are their rough compositions and designs:  
> Sword: Rowan/Alder, Iron, Wolf lying behind a sword, below a half moon  
> Fairies: Hazel/Oak, Copper, Twin stars weighted on balance scales  
> Bat: Willow/Aspen, Silver, The full moon, surrounded by stars  
> Imp: Hawthorn/Fir, Gold, Tower with five stars overhead  
> Ghost: Yew/Elder, Tin, Eclipse over a leafless tree
> 
> The bat and both of the fairies are named after non-canon characters. The Imp, Sword, and Ghost have no names, the first two because Alucard could not think of any for them when he was a child, and the ghost because he didn't think it was appropriate to name it.
> 
> Hypothetically, the bat's spell card ought to be a bit fragile compared to the others if you know anything about wood, but all the cards are more than their materials, and are durable.
> 
> I referred to the Celtic Ogham to determine the general tree types used, and the five non-toxic planetary metals. As for the pictures, they are partial references to tarot designs, but with their own night creature bent. I also tried not to be too literal with all of them. The most obscure one is the Imp. The five stars represent the five elemental attacks the Imp familiar can learn.
> 
> Yeah. You don't want to know how many hours I spent just coming up with these stupid card designs. ;_;
> 
> ...
> 
> Also... surprise! New? character. I just... I just couldn't resist. :)
> 
> We're shifting perspective in the next chapter. Hope you don't mind. It's uh... kind of important for the plot.


	5. That So Good Combination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way, even by death, and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment.”

_Lyudmil and his parents had known that his healing would take several months to complete. What they had not known was that Lady Lisa would be regularly stopping by their house. Every four days for four weeks, Lady Lisa came to check on him and his bound, broken limb, usually with a basket containing beef or fish and a fruit that Lyudmil had never seen before that was sweet and tart and quite squishy. She'd ask how much milk he was drinking, and how badly his arm hurt, and how much of the medicine she had given him he was taking and at what times (morning and night, measured out by his father). She insisted that he go out of the house and sit in the sun while she visited, and he had no idea why. She had said some nonsense to his mother about it speeding up his healing, as though his skin was swallowing sunlight like sweet oranges._

_"You have what is called a torus fracture," she told him. "It will mend well with proper care, but you need to eat well."_

_That was easier said than done. The medicine made him feel disoriented and fuzzy, and he had to eat in very small portions or he couldn't keep the food down. His mother's near constant company made things easier, and despite her distress over his pain, she seemed more cheerful somehow. Lyudmil mentioned this to his father one evening, and Ludvik agreed with him._

_"I think sometimes, your mama worries that she's a burden. Taking care of you makes her feel useful and that makes her happy."_

_She was not always happy, though. Adela did not seem to like Lady Lisa much at all. She became stiffer and quieter if the doctor was about, and though she kept an eye upon them both, she did not go outside with them during Lady Lisa's visits, as if she was avoiding her whenever possible._

_About halfway through the fourth week, Lady Lisa came to their house as expected, but did not take him outside._

_"I'd like to unbind and check on his arm today if that's all right, Adela," Lisa said, handing over her typical offering of beef and fruit to his wary mother._

_"Yes, thank you, Lady Lisa." Adela fiddled with the basket's handle for a moment before moving away to shelve the fruit and begin cutting the beef into chunks for a stew._

_The doctor came to his side, gave his free hand a light squeeze before setting her grip around his wrist- to measure his heart, she had said. "How are you feeling today, Lyudmil?"_

_"I'm okay."_

_"Just okay?"_

_"I'm bored," he admitted._

_"That's understandable. I think my little one would go mad if he were in your place; he's got no patience at all," she grinned._

_Lyudmil blinked. "Your little one?"_

_"My son, Adrian," she explained. "My son is... he has a strange condition, so he and his father live in a different place, where he can be better taken care of. But not many other people live there, so I travel between there and here, where I can help others. I can't use my skills as a doctor if there are no people around, after all."_

_"Did you become a doctor because of your son?"_

_"I didn't," said Lady Lisa, and her words were tinged with love. "Actually, it's almost the reverse. If I wasn't a doctor, I would never have met my husband. Now, let's see about your arm."_

_It took some time for her to remove the bindings, but when she did, Lyudmil realized that hadn't seen exactly what had happened to his arm, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know what it looked like now. He averted his eyes, trying to ignore the clinical hands carefully running over his limb._

_"Lyudmil, please try moving your wrist, gently." He did so. The stiffness shouldn't have surprised him, but it did. "Any pain at all?" There was laughter in her voice._

_"No."_

_Lisa raised her voice a little. "Adela, come here a moment, if you can? I want to show you something." His mother reappeared after a moment, then began shaking with her own hitching laughter._

_"What, what is it?" Lyudmil asked._

_"Your-your arm, love. All that basking in the sun this month has..."_

_Lyudmil looked and then snorted, blushing. His forearm was almost lily white, but the rest of him was tanned. "It looks like someone else's arm," he pouted._

_There was a gasp at his side, and then Lady Lisa was up and rushing to his mother's side. His mother was no longer laughing. She was half-doubled over, face a mask of pain, high-pitched sounds squeezing from her pressed lips._

_"Adela!" "Mama?!" "Adela, what's wrong? Tell me where it hurts; I can help." "Mama, are you okay?!" "Let me help you. It will be okay."_

_"No," his mother whispered. "No, please, don't..."_

_"What's going on?"_

_Lyudmil's father had always seemed to him to be the gentlest man in the world. To see him standing in the doorway of their house, his face filled with a cold menace, was strange beyond words._

_"Adela, why don't you go and have a lie-down?"_

_She went, gripping the wall for support._

_"Ludvik, I didn't mean to-"_

_"How is Lyudmil?" his father said, blandly._

_"H-he's well on the mend. He needs to carefully exercise his muscles, avoid any sort of activities that might strain or re-break his arm, so no lifting or any sort of rushing about. He still needs to use the sling, but..." she trailed off._

_"Is that all?"_

_"Ludvik, please, Adela is-"_

_"I am grateful to you," he cut in, "for what you've done for my son, and what's more, that you've done it while refusing any sort of pay. I know that you can be trusted with a child's broken bones, and that's a relief, make no mistake. I'll trust no doctor, no priest, **no one** with my Adela. You leave her be. You can't help. All you can do is make her hurt more, and I won't let you. **You leave her be.** " Then he stepped to the side, and jerked his head towards the door. "Good day."_

 

* * *

 

 

"God damn it," Trevor hissed, dragging himself up out of the mud. "It's almost enough to make me miss the fucking snow."

"Maybe if you were watching where you were going instead of slobbering at the sight of every tavern or barrel we walk by, you would not be such a filthy wreck," Sypha snorted. "I take back what I said before we left. You haven't grown up at all."

"Please don't make me regret agreeing to come to this shit-hole with you any more than I already do," Trevor groaned. "God, why did I give your fangy messiah my estate? Why did I do that? I wasn't even drunk. How does someone make a decision that bad while _sober_ , Sypha?"

Sypha laughed, then made a few gestures, pulling at her magic. Ice formed far above his head, then fire beneath it, and water was cascading onto him like a warm storm, sending the mud back to the ground where it belonged. "You may regret it, but I thought it was very noble and sweet."

"That's me. Noble and sweet. Even to assholes like him. Just call me Saint Belmont."

The water hitting him suddenly dropped in temperature. "I've changed my mind again."

"Of course you ha- ow!" Sypha pinched his arm hard. "Right, right. Whatever you say."

Sypha nodded. "Yes, whatever I say. Now, where shall we start?"

It was very early morning, and no one seemed to be in the streets of Braila. There were signs of recent human activity and no dead lying about, so they assumed that whatever had happened before Sypha had pulled the castle from Braila had been resolved.

That did not mean that there was not damage. Despite it having been over a month, there was a distinct dampness still hanging in the air. And something else, too. "I don't think anything from Dracula's castle is still around. There's... you feel it, too, right? The whole town feels, uh... churchy."

"Holy, yes," said Sypha. "Everything in the town seems touched with magic, cleansing magic. Even if anything survived what happened here, they probably couldn't have stood to remain for long. Let's ask about. Hopefully someone will know something."

"And hopefully that someone won't see fit to pull out a pitchfork and see us on our way."

"Trevor, you need to let that go. They'd nearly been wiped out by demons. They must have seen the fire from the fight! You really can't fault the people of Arges for, ah, not being too happy to see us."

"Yes, I bloody well can. Fucking pitchforks. Why's it always fucking pitchforks and torches? Jesus Christ."

"Well, what else are they supposed to do, beat people off with saddlebags?"

"Yes."

"Ugh."

"I'd be more afraid of saddlebags than pitchforks."

"Of course you would."

"No, Sypha, I mean it. You can, you can disarm people with pitchforks. How are you supposed to stop a saddlebag swinging at your head?"

"I... how do you always suck me into these stupid arguments?" she moaned.

"It's a gift from God, Sypha. You wouldn't know anything about that, eh, Speaker?"

"I want to go home."

"You haven't got a home."

"That's not what I- _Trevor_!"

 

* * *

  
Two hours later, they found themselves, predictably, in a tavern. While most would not talk to them, they managed to get into the good graces of the owner, and he gave them what little information he had.

An army had marched through the town to line the river, and a castle had appeared. Troops had filed out of the castle, but then their path over the river had been broken, and they fell into the water and vanished. After that, all Hell had broken loose. The castle vanished and reappeared over and over, crushing land, sending things flying through the air every time it moved, and finally it had landed directly in the river, sending water rushing through the streets.

Sypha looked a little disturbed. Trevor couldn't blame her.

"We think most of em were wiped out in the water, but the rest left the next night," the owner said. "Now I didn't see them leave myself, but a couple of my regulars did. Fucked up thing was, every one of my blokes says that they had some poor bastard on a chain and were dragging him behind a horse. Jesus. Can you imagine?"

"Wait, they took someone from Braila?" Trevor asked. "Just one man?"

"They only had the one chained up, yeah. Dunno if he was from Braila, though, and there's no way to find out; a lotta folks died. Crushed, washed away. Ripped to pieces by those monsters if they lived by the river... was a bloody nightmare. Still, we weren't wiped out like Targoviste, so that's something, eh?"

"Yeah," Sypha choked. "That's... that's something."

...

  
" _Shit._ Sypha, it wasn't your fault," Trevor sighed, rubbing his temple with one hand as he patted her back with the other as the two of them stumbled down the street. "Please stop freaking out."

"Trevor, you are the worst. Youuu- no, I am, _I am the worst!_ " she wailed. "I didn't even think! I just _pulled_ and it pulled back and so I _pulled harder_ and I squashed the people, Trevooor! I squashed them!"

Trevor made a weird, aborted sound in his chest, and her crying abruptly stopped.

"You... Trevor are you.. Are you _laughing_ at this?!"

"Pft... no, _no_ I just... er... no, _no Sypha_ I'm... gwa... I'm _not_... No, it's not... haha... it's... no, you're right it's not funny, it's a fucking tragedy all around... hahahaha!"

"Oh my _god_ Trevor, I can't believe I ever saw anything good in you!"

"Oh, come on, you don't mean tha- Sypha, what are you doing? What- oh _shit._ "

"Clearly Arges isn't the only town that deserves a little fire show," Sypha spat, tears forgotten in her wrath, and then pointed straight at him with her index and pinky finger extended.

Trevor's went white and ducked down an alley, the speaker hot on his heels. "Sypha, no! What about the pitchforks?! The torches?! The SADDLEBAGS?!"

...

"Where do you think that army that attacked Dracula's castle came from?" Sypha mused, looking out over the wreckage by the riverbank from the window of the empty house they were squatting in for the night. There was nothing here for them to take vengeance upon. Nothing they could do but look out over the ruined parts of the city and feel shame.

"There were some of them fighting inside the entry hall when we got there, remember?" Trevor slurred. "Jesus Christ, did you really have to set me on fire like that? I'm plastered and it still hurts. Pain and plastered aren't supposed to go together. What's the point in getting drunk if it can't even make you f-feel good?"

"Trevor, if you don't shut up, I will freeze your toes off one by one."

"B-but you asked me a question... didn't you? There was a question in there or... something... I don't... what were we talking about again?"

"Ugh. I'm going to bed." She waved her hand, and the lamp went out.

"No, Sypha, what were... what were we talking about? I... were we talking about bed? Sypha?"

...

" _God_ , why do I do this to myself?"

"Because you are an idiot."

"This is Hell. You killed me yesterday in Braila and now I'm in Hell."

"Being singed and hungover is not comparable to being in Hell, _Belmont._ "

"Oh, we're... ugh... we're back to Belmont, are we?"

"Yes."

"Sypha, don't be like that."

"I'll be however I want to be, thank you very much. _**Belmont.**_ "

"You're welcome. Urp..."

"No, don't-! Ugh..."

"Sypha, I don't feel good."

"I noticed."

"Sypha, please stop judging me."

"No."

...

"So, where are we going, _Belmont?_ " Sypha said, stepping up onto the wagon.

"Mmm. You're not gonna like the answer to that one," Trevor muttered as he followed suit, still a bit woozy.

"Well?"

"Before we left, I asked Alucard about some of the dead fucks in the castle. He said that he didn't recognize most of the fancier ones, but that those armored troops were in the colors of Styria's ruling vampire." Trevor leaned back, trying to get away from the sun. "So, we're heading west, mostly. Little north, too. Shit, it's far off."

Sypha looked thoughtful. "Well, maybe we could make use of that mirror Alucard showed us? The one in the castle? It would be faster, yes?"

Trevor frowned. "I... yeah, it would. Actually, that's a great idea. We wouldn't have to waste time going up and down the damn country looking for a mostly obliterated vampire army."

"So, we get to see Alucard again?" Sypha said, cheering up immediately.

"Yeah. That's the rancid froth on top of the piss beer, isn't it."

"Oh, shut up, you like him."

"I really, _really_ don't."

"Surely you wouldn't give your family legacy to someone you don't like?"

"Like I said, that was a mistake. Actually, you know what? It's a mistake so bad that it needs correcting. We're going back for the mirror, and to take back what's mine."

"Of course we are."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The opening flashback for this chapter was very dark, imo, and so I decided to lighten things up and get the second part of my plot off the ground. I've decided to ignore the fact that there is going to be a season three, and instead I'm just going to write what I think makes the most sense.
> 
> This was a surprisingly fun chapter to write, though I think I could fix up some bits. Hope you enjoy.


End file.
